Family and more!

OK so it has been a little while and I'm so sorry! I promise this year I'm going to try harder to write more! About three weeks before my amazing family came to see me, English class got really intense! We started learning a lot of new things but the best was when we learned classroom objects. We would play a game where I would put a table at the front of the class with various objects from the classroom like books, pencils, staplers, paper, markers, crayons, and just about anything else you can find in a classroom. There are two teams and it’s a relay race. I say an object and one person from each team runs, grabs the object, runs back to their team and has another person run back to me with the object, and the first team to get me the object gets a point. The kids go completely crazy. It’s so fun! I like to play to 15 points but they like to play until their team wins . . . .so the game goes on for pretty long ☺ We also learned commands like sit down, stand up, back, forward, jump, and spin. I have a song that says all these things and makes it into a dance. They love doing it and love to have competitions to see who could dance the moves the best and who could sing the words (in English) the loudest. I have some amazing videos of the dance and all the games that we play in class. Since Christmas was coming fast, we learned some Christmas words and phrases, and I thought I would teach them a simple Christmas song. So we started learning Silent Night. I mentioned it to the Pastor, and he said he wanted the kids to sing it for the Christmas service in church. I said ok but it’s going to take a lot more work! So we worked extra hard on the song and eventually it was really good and we were ready! Also, one day in class I said we were going to make Christmas cards for family, friends or whoever you want (in English) It was so cute, because almost every kid made a card for either my family or for me.

The past ten days of my life were amazing, because my family and my amazing boyfriend came to see me! When I was waiting in the airport for them to come in I really almost peed my pants! So they got here and we came back to the house and had a really good lunch that Francie, my host mom, cooked, and then we went to church. My family started to meet everyone and my class, too. The kids love my family! There is one girl named Anna, and I really think she was in love with Zach. Not just her but everyone was amazed with how tall he was, and Anna loved to have him pick her up over his head.
We saw the Mirador of Catarina, went to Derick’s and Julisa’s wedding (which was amazing), saw my kids sing Silent Night in church, gave gift bags to all my students, went to San Juan del Sur, and Zach and I with other teenagers from Catarina, climbed up AND down a mountain that I swear was at least 10 miles. Ok it was probably more like 1 but it was sooo hard I almost died! We also saw the project site for the Nicaragua Project and other towns and cities in Nicaragua. ANDDDDDD I had to translate the whole time for everyone and I could actually do it! So I am learning my Spanish. The house was FULL with people while my family was here. My mom, dad, sister, boyfriend and me, Bayardo, Francie, Derick, Joel, Joshua, and Heyler, and all the other people that would come by everyday to meet my family or do other things in the house. So after my family left and I came back, the house felt really empty and I was soo sad because my family left. But its ok, because I am almost half way there and I still have a lot of things to do here!

Now that the holidays are over I’m going to start teaching again next week. Yesterday I climbed the horrible mountain again. The only good part to the mountain is at the bottom is the Lagoon of Catarina and it is sooo fun to swim in! It's just hard, because we leave early in the morning and spend all day there in the sun with not a lot of food, so by the end of the day when its time to climb back up, I am almost dead. I am even closer to dead when Nestor, a boy from the church who is in really good shape, grabs my arm and practically drags me up the mountain running. It was really horrible, but I am actually getting in shape now, which is good!

So everything is going good. I had a great time with my family, I now have a new sister in the house, Derick's new wife Julisa, and I am beyond ready with school supplies to start teaching again soon! Thank you so much to everyone who sent school supplies, presents for the kids, presents for me, and prayers. It really all helps so much and makes such a difference in my teaching and the kids lives. Thank you so much for all the support!